User blog:Deadcoder/Deadcoder's Reviews: Common Interest
One of the main flaws with Code Lyoko was that the main antagonist, X.A.N.A., didn't really have clearly defined consistent motives. Marabounta was the first time that issue was really addressed. However in that Marabounta, XANA's closest thing to motive was "Hmm, it's going to be extremely hard to tentacle mind rape her if she is destroyed or surrounded by sentient tarballs which are all trying to eat me. I should probably deal with this." That's a fairly simple motive. With Common Interest, the writers realized this issue, since they had brought it up in Marabounta. From what I can tell, Common Interest was an experimental piece designed to do something with XANA that DIDN'T involve mass murder, mind rape, or James Bond Villain stupidity. Prior to this, most of the experimental episodes of Code Lyoko were successful in one way or another. This blog will discuss if the writers continued that pattern. My scoring system is simple: 10 - 0 with 10 being amazing, and 0 being Melanie Tran's acting. My review is, as usual, based on the English dub. =The Review= Common Interest starts off with a shot that looks like something out of season 1: attack music, pulsations, and scenery porn of the Ice Sector. The only thing that makes it season 2 or later is the lighting engine and the tarantulas. We see a spectre emerge from an electric fence with biohazard signs. Two cops are seen transporting a prisoner, and amazingly for law enforcement, actually doing their jobs correctly and responsibly. They even check on the welfare of Peter Dunkan, when he passes out. Frankly though, I think the only reason they did this was that even Code Lyoko couldn't get away with showing police brutality. Duncan escapes the handcuffs, breaking them like a french car. One cop calls her superiors to tell them what's going on. Like they're supposed to. The other one ends up unconscious in a car window, as she is about to become a round 2 horror movie victim, complete with dead radio. Even though they're bit characters, I think these cops show that this is a kid's show. I mean, police who actually do their jobs and aren't corrupt scum? Only a kid's show could get away with showing something so stupid and unrealistic. MINUS ONE POINT FOR PORTRAYING LAW ENFORCEMENT AS DECENT HUMAN BEINGS! I understand the whole "Suspension of disbelief" thing, and I can accept a french supercomputer which not only works, but can violate reality; but competent ethical law enforcement is just stretching things too far. We see the characters discussing the matter. They suspect that it was XANA, since 90% of the issues they encounter are due to either XANA or incompetence. Jeremie rules this out thanks to the superscan. We then get backstory about what duncan did; as his crimes include falsifying government records, child murder, failure to report kidnapping, vandalism, accessory to a phony bomb threat, pilfering records without a warrant, illegal access of government data. Oopsie, this is the Lyoko Warrior's rap sheet, not Duncan's. Well, I'm not typing Duncan's list too, so let's continue. Aelita has a migraine. We see the students in a math test, and Jeremie finishes the test quickly; which isn't surprising, since they're like in the 8th grade, and doing what sounds like 5th grade work. Everyone is surprised by this. Frankly, I would be surprised too if there was someone in that school who was neither an idiot nor insane. Duncan and Aelita pass out from migraines. They cut unneeded steps, and just use the ambulance, skipping Yolanda, since she can't even identify Amnesia. Jeremie at her side, Aelita arrives at the hospital, with about as much pulse as a weekold mayfly. Aaaannnddd, Aelita is dead again! Everyone do a shot! She and Duncan wake back up. Everyone wonders what caused this, and they pass theories. Meanwhile, the superscan isn't working properly. Since it's running on a dying french supercomputer and written by Jeremie, the fact it even can run without a segmentation fault is nothing short of a miracle. Apparently, this hospital can poop miracles, since that's the second one in less than a minute. Yumi stays with Aelita, while the others go to the factory. GREAT IDEA! LET'S PUT THE TWO PEOPLE WHO ACCOUNT FOR 99% OF XANA'S ATTACKS IN THE SAME ROOM GUARDED ONLY BY FRENCH DOCTORS, WHEN ONE IS RECOVERING FROM DEATH ITSELF! Ulrich, Odd, and Jeremie go to the factory with ominous music. At the same time, Duncan waits for a radioactive vehicle. The vehicle shows up, and the driver hits the brakes. For once, the vehicle suffers the German Car problem rather than the French Car problem: rather than failing to move, it fails to stop. Despite being a German vehicle, the people are still french. The password to a Uranium transport truck was 123456! This explains how Franz Hopper got the FIRST Uranium rod. The two people with guns have stereotyped American accents The two guards are unconscious, and some Uranium has gone missing, mysteriously. Let's see, A German vehicle secured by French people and guarded by Americans has just had the most cliche Russian problem. Since they don't have the superscan, Odd assumes that they should go to Lyoko to bruteforce search the activated towers. Cue the virtualization music! Against all odds, they find the activated tower in like 10 seconds. The supercomputer starts to crash. If you look closely, when the Holomap flickers to death, for a quarter second, you can see carthage in the center of the map. Plus one point for Geography Porn! Odd and Ulrich wonder what's going on. Meanwhile, Yumi spends time with Aelita. Aaaannnndddd Aelita is dead again. Everyone do a shot! Duncan passes out from another migraine, this time carrying Uranium. Jeremie checks on the supercomputer, as it emerges from being held in a anime bathscene. On Lyoko, Ulrich and Odd try to devirtualize eachother, and fail at pointblank targets. Guys? I get that she's in the hospital and you have to cover for her, but leave Aelita's job for her when she gets back. Jeremie jiggles the power handle of the machine holding the very existence of his friends, and the ice sector starts to disappear in a horrifyingly beautiful use of both vector and raster artwork. Jiggling the handle finally works, and Aelita is alive again, and Ulrich and Odd stop falling to their doom. At least this time, the Just in Time shot was in the middle of the episode, and the characters were able to pull themselves up a cliff. Bonus point for addressing recurring issues in the show! Duncan is alive again, and continues smuggling the Uranium, which Jeremie notices that the supercomputer is low on. Jeremie explains to the other characters something that is already known by everyone who has ever owned a gameboy: the machine keeps failing because the battery is dying like Aelita. Odd suggest the obvious: change the battery. Jeremie complains that uranium batteries aren't just something you can buy in a convenience store. Umm Jeremie? I know you're stressed, but this isn't even hard. Just get a train ride to eastern europe, which is doable from where you are, and buy it there. Don't you know that you can buy Uranium over there for reasonable prices, practically in the open? And Moonscoop: you had a perfectly good advertising chance here, to gain revenue by product plugging the Russian Mafia, and ignored it. YOU IDIOTS! Jeremie does what I want to do with this scene, and gets a drink. Since this is a French Hospital, an escaped convict is able to casually stroll in and commit kidnapping. Everyone wonders what happened to him, and Aelita dies. Again. Jeremie is in a hazmat suit that he just happened to have. We find out that Jeremie just murdered his girlfriend by shutting off the machine that keeps her alive. We find out that he's changing the battery. He points out that once the battery is switched, Duncan will probably try to kill him. Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich take Aelita to the factory. I mean, there's been so many cases of kidnapping in this hospital, I doubt anyone will notice another. They take her corpse to the factory, while Jeremie takes the long firm thing out of the supercomputer's orifice, and puts another in. I wouldn't point this out if it weren't for the dirty noises he makes as he does it. "Please let this be alive." Jeremie, your girlfriend is multiple count corpse, and that combined with this scene drives me to one conclusion: You are a necrophiliac. I know, I know, Aelita is a pedophile, since she's 22 and he's 12, equal judgement. That means that a pedophile and a necrophiliac are dating in a kid's show. Look, I'm all for progressive love, but even I think this is a tad extreme. Duncan and the Supercomputer reboot. Jeremie and Ulrich are now in the lab, with everyone else in the scanner room. Cue the virtualization music! Again! They arrive on Lyoko, and see Kankrelats. Great, you spent the whole episode building drama, and then you get this. This is a microcosm of evolution. You build an amazing thing over time, and then: tuba noise. Jeremie materializes the vehicles. Wait a minute. That tower was on the same plateau as the characters, now it's several miles away, via completely different geography. Look I get that the writers have no sense of scale, but is it too much to ask that they have a basic sense of geography? Apparently, despite all logic, those two tarantulas are both alive and guarding the tower. Since she has done nothing but die this episode, Aelita encounters the Aelita options! :0. Act suicidal and/or crazy. :1. Attack it with a long single note of angry music. :2. Have an argument with it. :3. Use Energy Fields. :Yumi: "Hey Aelita, can you use creativity to deal with those?" :Aeltia: "Yumi? I haven't even been breathing half the time today. Do you really expect me to use the long single note of angry music now?!" flips off tarantula :Yumi: "Wow, I can see SOMEONE is having her monthly option 2." :Aelita: "Yumi, don't piss me off right now. I've already died like 3 times today, so don't think I won't use 0 out of spite." :Yumi: "ugg. You know, we really need to get you some more options." :Aelita: "Honey, doing something productive is JEREMIE'S JOB, not mine. All I do is take long stiff towers and deactivate them with both Lyoko and Jeremie. All you do is do that with Ulrich. So don't be a hypocrite. And where do you suggest I GET more powers anyway? Jeremie? He can't even program Sequential Search properly!" :Yumi: "Do what everyone else does for superpower ideas: Steal them from Naruto." :Jeremie: "Yumi, stop pimping Japanese crap. Aelita, do something useful." We get a giant blob of recycled footage to defeat the tarantulas, while Jeremie is cornered in the lab by a spectre, again. Yumi and Odd get devirtualized. But before you can say "tentacle rape", Aelita FINALLY chooses 1 and destroys the remaining tarantula and gets in the tower. For some reason, the lab turns yellow, like Jeremie's pants probably are, as we get a JustInTime moment. We then see the warriors back at Kadic. Never mind that they've just stolen uranium, kidnapped a person from a hospital, and just had someone die 3 times. And don't say that they used an RTTP, because they even dumped of Duncan's body at the police station. Review Summary This episode had good parts; but honestly, it wasn't great. It was tons of drama for the sake of drama layered on top of more drama; without any regard for suspension of disbelief. Frankly, even the writers could tell that this episode was bad. It was so crappy that they killed Aelita 3 times for drama! Overall rating: 1/10. The only redeeming thing this episode had was the tension of XANA trying to get the Uranium to save itself. Everything else sucked. Category:Blog posts Category:Common Interest